Monophobia
by StriderAndVargas
Summary: This is a Fandomstuck one-shot centering in an AU where fandoms age at the rate they would in their media. Homestuck is a mutant blood troll. Hetalia's characters are all immortal.


**Quick AN, when I wrote this I was doing 'An AU a Day'. This fic has an AU where fandoms age at the rate of their characters rather than being ageless.**

'Monophobia: The extreme or abnormal fear of being alone.'

He'd always been told he'd been a bit clingy. To friends, his boyfriend, even his brother 2ptalia, which confused just about everyone. He couldn't help it, it was the way he was. Losing them, any of them, would utterly decimate him, wreck him to his very core. That's why he clung to them like they were the threads that held together the universe itself. He was fine that way. Innumerable years spent with those he loved most, youth never leaving him. Nobody had to leave, he wasn't going to leave, they wouldn't leave.

Immortality is both a blessing and a curse.

It had never occurred to Hetalia that, with the exception of himself, his siblings, and a few others, death always hid in the shadows, the uncertainty of whether or not you'll see the sun rise again lurking just within the reaches of plausibility. He'd never thought of life as such a fragile thing. He'd never thought that he'd have to let some of those lives go, those threads that held his entire world together.

You have to let go of those you love the most.

Homestuck was one of those people. His boyfriend, or 'matesprit' according to the quadrant system, had to be the most important person to Hetalia. Hetalia, who'd seemed to have forgotten about blood castes, lifespans, and just about everything Homestuck had explained at least once a month, it seemed. Some conversation would fall to the topic, and he'd explain for the hundredth time that he would die some day, and that mutant bloods like himself only lasted so long.

"It's funny, to think that I'm probably halfway through life. Kinda depressing really." Hetalia always nodded in agreement. It was horrible, but it felt more like a far off idea, and it would never be reality. Then Homestuck would always ask the same question,

"How long are you probably gonna live anyway, Heta?" His everlasting grin would falter, even just for a second, before it's speedy return and a change in subject. It had always worried the grey-skinned fandom slightly, did he want to know? He had always noticed how when the subject came about, conversation was immediately redirected. He didn't mind however, they were happy then, and that was perfectly fine.

The best things never last.

Years passed, and Homestuck still hadn't noticed anything. The fact that Hetalia still hadn't grown an inch didn't really begin to bother him until his own 8th wriggling day, or to his matesprit, 18th birthday. Festivities had long since ended, and the two could be found rewatching Con-Air in Homestuck's bedroom when he finally voiced the question.

"Hey, Hetalia?" Green eyes that were once trained on the screen met his.

"Yeah?"

"You're not immortal, are you?" He seemed caught off-guard.

"What made you think that?" He quickly covered it with his usual grin.

"Just the fact that you're almost the same as you've always been, you definitely don't look..." He paused, fumbling for the human way to put it.

"18?"

"Yeah."

"Well I definitely am, so quit being paranoid." How quickly he'd said it frankly said otherwise. It was one of the many little things he'd noticed about his matesprit. His words would speed up until it hardly sounded like English anymore, depending on how bad the lie.

"Very funny. Tell me, seriously." The defeated sigh worried him most of all.

"I am. There's nothing too wrong with that though, right?" That was the answer he'd been afraid of.

"Well there's definitely something wrong with me not knowing!" Hetalia shrunk in his seat.

"Now, what? I'm going to be 15 sweeps and you'll still be 7? That won't work! It couldn't work!" He went on, and with each raise in volume, Hetalia curled up more. Once Homestuck had finished his rant, the brunette finally spoke, a small, shaky voice, completely unlike his usual bravado.

"There's no way it could work. I'm sorry Homestuck." More words he'd been afraid of.

"What are you trying to say?" His voice simmered with rage, and something else. Worry? Fear? He couldn't quite place it.

"I don't know." By this time there were tears pricking in his eyes. Those emerald eyes which were so often bright, glinting with excitement, or mischief, even dulled by lust, which was something only he'd seen, accompanied by a pink glow that spread from his nose to the tips of his ears. Now however, they welled with tears, every inch of him screaming "I shouldn't have said anything." Apart from his voice, which seemed to have disappeared in its entirety, that is. "Is this it?"

"Is it?"

Nothing's quite the same.

Hetalia wished it had been. After that night they'd stayed close, but all intimacy had been lost. What had once been chaste kisses in hallways became waves from across the room, flustering winks were half smiles. He hated it. Every inch of him longed for what they'd been before, lovers, that was how things were supposed to be. He hadn't lost Homestuck, but he might as well have. In the years that passed, new fandoms came and went, leaving sidewalk chalk marks on pavement before a storm. He'd even dated a few of them. Nothing worked out. Hetalia and Homestuck remained friends, though the disconnection still left an ache that spread through his entire body, day in and day out. From the core of his chest to the tips of his toes it lingered. But they stayed friends.

The hardest part is the end.

By the time Homestuck was 35 and ill in ways only someone over 80 should have to experience, the end came. Under the cloak of night, Death had made his swift collection, and had been on his way. It was only the first time anyone except the troll had seen the walls break, and that smile disappeared, replaced by wave after wave of sobs, until it was impossible to let another tear fall. The proper formalities were given, a funeral on a day that was too sunny for something as utterly world destroying as this. The man who's name still was burned into his soul, and the fact that he was being lowered into the ground in a stuffy suit that he likely would have hated, left to rot in the ground and be forgotten. It was wrong. Homestuck was dead and Hetalia would live on, not having aged a day since his 16th birthday. Immortality was supposed to be a gift, though from that point forward, it'd be a punishment. Homestuck, his best friend and the love of his life was gone. He was alone.


End file.
